Getting comfortable with the uncomfortable

The uncomfortable is, by definition, not comfortable. It doesn’t nourish us or make us feel content. It highlights a flaw, something in us which is unaccepting: of our situation, of another person, or of an aspect of ourselves.

In personal development we strive to ‘work through’ these ‘issues’, to get to the other side. The irony is, the only way to do this is to accept the unacceptable: to find peace in the discomfort; safety in the fear.

For a big part of my life I chose emotionally unavailable men: men whom, for one reason or another, didn’t want to let me in. I pitched myself as spiritually superior to them because I was ‘available’. I wanted them to open up to me. I opened up to them; told them all my secrets – used my words to describe eloquently the state of my psyche and the reasons for any ‘issues’ I might be ‘working through’. What I failed to realise, is that in picking these men, I ensured that I would never have to get too close: I would never have to truly open up to the one thing that scared me the most: the delicate balance of maintaining independence, AND trusting another person enough to receive support from them.

I was so scared of becoming co-dependent, I avoided dependency altogether. I kept my distance, and chose people who would never let me get that close. I thought it kept me safe.

I was wrong.

We are never ‘safe’. Not the way we define it. True safety comes from intimacy: it comes from trust, vulnerability and settling into the uncomfortableness of having nothing left to hide.
Allowing myself to be truly seen, for who I am, has been, and continues to be, my greatest challenge AND achievement. It is the key to creating peace, inside and out, and it comes with practice, commitment, and a willingness to sit with the uncomfortable, without pushing to ‘work through it’. If you’re willing, I want to see you, and support you in the uncomfortable stuff, the hard stuff and the shameful stuff. Let’s get comfortable with it all. Applications for the True You Collective close Friday, 22nd December (first payment isn’t due until 29th). Here’s the link – take a leap with me <3